You can just declare war out of nowhere, but doing so gives a large bonus to your enemy's war support, which is a measure of how enthusiastic their people are to fight you.

Influence is also used quite a bit in the diplomacy system, and this is probably the cleverest idea Humankind brings to the genre. As a chill tile-painting game in which I can watch my civilization spread across the gorgeous world map, Humankind stands up well against its competition. These considerations made planning out my empire's path to prosperity an interesting and often challenging puzzle. Influence limits how much you can expand externally and spreads your culture to neighboring cities, while stability limits how much you can expand internally, as urban centers that sprawl out further and further become more difficult to govern. There are two new resources that mix things up a little. But you eventually settle into a more traditional 4X routine of expanding cities through districts to collect food, science, production, and cash, against up to nine other AI or human-controlled empires. I enjoyed this unorthodox playstyle so much that I wished I could have spent more time with it, or even remained nomadic. One of my favorite little new ideas in Humankind is the Neolithic Era, which starts each run with a small band of nomadic hunter-gatherers who have to collect enough food or science to advance and become a settled society.

And more than once, that left me wishing it had pushed the boundaries a bit more, like the studio's previous Endless Space and Endless Legend games did. While I was delighted by some genuine improvements and innovations on my turn-based march from the Stone Age to the Space Age, most of the basics felt pretty familiar. I don't want to spend an entire review comparing Humankind to Sid Meier's Civilization, but it's very clear that this is Amplitude's riff on that classic 4X melody.

Civ 5 coal bug